James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

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All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

"This was all done using the Adobe suite, (After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator) along with Cinema 4D.

"I wanted the video to stay in the organic realm and mimic the look and feel of a real camera and everything that comes along with it. The shallow depth of field, slow camera motion that follows the paint bleeding onto the drawing, and realistic lighting to set the mood.

"The “reveals” would ideally have been done by shooting cotton based paper against a light box and then pouring a mix of India ink and water at various consistencies over it and using that as a “mask”. However given that we needed considerably more control over the actual reveal, I decided to try to recreate this effect digitally.

"I discovered that animating the edges of the ink reveal is never smooth as the paper weave isn’t consistent. There is also a thin line around the edge of the ink that first makes the paper appear “wet” before it fills it in with the opaque ink. These observations enabled me to create this in After Effects using built-in plugins.

"The camera motion was achieved via Maxon’s Cinema 4D, using a combination of a target camera and then finessing the motion manually. Subsequentially, the camera data was piped into Adobe’s After Effects, where all the compositing and appropriate titling was done.

"The score was composed by Michael Brennan. He used the primal nature of the dinosaur world as a jumping off point and created something that is absolutely brilliant. It elevates James Gurney’s painting to an even higher level."

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Helpful Bear is a great little company that combines the talents of Vidur Gupta, Gilbert Banducci, Terryl Whitlatch, Michael Brennan, and David Bober